Musiala stars as Bayern breeze through in German Cup

Jamal Musiala has scored a first-half hat trick as Bayern Munich reached the third round of the German Cup with a 4-0 win over Mainz.

Bayern were never seriously tested on Wednesday night after Musiala opened the scoring less than 90 seconds into the game.

The ease of the win underlined Bayern's return to the sort of domestic dominance it is used to in Germany after a trophyless 2023-24 season, even if their Champions League campaign has been less impressive.

After scoring his first on a slick team move assisted by Harry Kane, Musiala made sure he was in the right place at the right time for his other goals.

The second came on the rebound when a Kane shot was saved and Musiala completed his hat-trick with Bayern's fourth of the game, a tap-in when Konrad Laimer's cross deflected off two Mainz players. Shortly before that, Leroy Sane had scored Bayern's third goal on a flowing counterattack that began in his team's own penalty area.

"I'm getting in good position in the box, which allows me to score easy goals. That was missing from my game in the past few years. Today it worked really well," Musiala told ZDF.

In Wednesday night's other games, Union Berlin suffered an early exit with a 2-0 loss to third-division Arminia Bielefeld and Heidenheim were also upset, 2-1 by second-division Hertha Berlin.

Eintracht Frankfurt played almost all of the game with 10 men but still beat Borussia Moenchengladbach 2-1.

Other Bundesliga teams progressed as Werder Bremen knocked out Paderborn 1-0, Freiburg saw off Hamburg 2-1 and Hoffenheim knocked out Nuremberg 2-1.

Third-division Dynamo Dresden scored in the 10th minute of added time to level 2-2 against second-tier Darmstadt and take the match to extra-time. But Darmstadt prevailed thanks to Isac Lidberg's winner in the 98th.

With DPA.